SBI charges for minimum balance during FY17 unreasonable: IIT-B report

The State Bank of India's charges for the non-maintenance of minimum balance were unreasonable, said a report by Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay professor. 

SBI started charging fees for non-maintenance of minimum balance from April 2017, after a gap of five years. The monthly fees ranged from Rs 20 - Rs 100 till September 2017 and were later slashed in October 2017. 

According to finance ministry data, SBI collected Rs 24.34 billion for the financial year 2017 in a penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance alone. 

The bank, later on, slashed these charges by nearly 80 per cent in April 2018, and the charges currently range from Rs 5-Rs 15. 

The public sector lender had earlier said that only 60 per cent of its accounts for subject to these charges. It also said that people should convert their accounts in Basic Savings and Basic Deposit Accounts to avoid penalty for non-maintenance of balance. 

"For the month of April 2017, SBI recovered Rs 2.35 billion as penalty from only 38.9 million of the 255 million savings bank accounts in question for not maintaining minimum monthly average balance," said the aforementioned report. 

The report also said that the bank should reverse the penalties collected in FY 17 for non-maintenance of minimum balance, in order to "not get portrayed as exploitative for the past year.